''Eucithara abakcheutos'' is a small
sea snail
Sea snails are slow-moving marine (ocean), marine gastropod Mollusca, molluscs, usually with visible external shells, such as whelk or abalone. They share the Taxonomic classification, taxonomic class Gastropoda with slugs, which are distinguishe ...
, a
marine gastropod
Gastropods (), commonly known as slugs and snails, belong to a large Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda ().
This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, freshwater, and fro ...
mollusk
Mollusca is a phylum of protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum after Arthropoda. The ...
in the family
Mangeliidae
Mangeliidae is a monophyletic family of small to medium-sized, predatory sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Conoidea.
Bouchet, P. (2011). Mangeliidae P. Fischer, 1883. In: MolluscaBase (2016). Accessed through: World Regis ...
.
[WoRMS (2009). Eucithara abakcheutos Kilburn, 1992. In: MolluscaBase (2017). Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=433680 on 2017-04-28]
Description
The shell size attains 8 mm, its diameter 3.6 mm.
The small shell has a biconic-fusiform shape with a small, but sharp
protoconch
A protoconch (meaning first or earliest or original shell) is an embryonic or larval shell which occurs in some classes of molluscs, e.g., the initial chamber of an ammonite or the larval shell of a gastropod. In older texts it is also called " ...
. The five
teleoconch
The gastropod shell is part of the body of many gastropods, including snails, a kind of mollusc. The shell is an exoskeleton, which protects from predators, mechanical damage, and dehydration, but also serves for muscle attachment and calcium ...
whorl
A whorl ( or ) is an individual circle, oval, volution or equivalent in a whorled pattern, which consists of a spiral or multiple concentric objects (including circles, ovals and arcs).
In nature
File:Photograph and axial plane floral diagra ...
s are convex. The whorls are slightly concave at the shoulder. The
aperture
In optics, the aperture of an optical system (including a system consisting of a single lens) is the hole or opening that primarily limits light propagated through the system. More specifically, the entrance pupil as the front side image o ...
is long and narrow. The outer
lip
The lips are a horizontal pair of soft appendages attached to the jaws and are the most visible part of the mouth of many animals, including humans. Mammal lips are soft, movable and serve to facilitate the ingestion of food (e.g. sucklin ...
shows a thick varix. The inner lip is smooth or with small denticles. The ten opisthocline axial ribs are more or les prominent but do not project above the suture. The axial ribs are markedly narrower than the interstices, becoming weak below the shallow suture. The main interstices show a row of microscopic granules. The spiral sculpture is coarser (about 20-27 lirae on penultimate whorl). The
siphonal canal
The siphonal canal is an anatomical feature of the shells of certain groups of sea snails within the clade Neogastropoda. Some sea marine gastropods have a soft tubular anterior extension of the mantle called a siphon through which water i ...
is short. The color of the shell is white, the
body whorl
The body whorl is part of the morphology (biology), morphology of the gastropod shell, shell in those gastropod mollusks that possess a coiled shell. The term is also sometimes used in a similar way to describe the shell of a cephalopod mollusk ...
is suffused with brownish.
Kilburn R.N. 1992. Turridae (Mollusca: Gastropoda) of southern Africa and Mozambique. Part 6. Subfamily Mangeliinae, section 1. Annals of the Natal Museum, 33: 461–575
/ref>
Distribution
This marine species has been found on the inner continental shelf of northern Zululand, South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
.
References
Tucker, J.K. 2004 ''Catalog of recent and fossil turrids (Mollusca: Gastropoda)''. Zootaxa 682:1-1295.
{{Taxonbar, from=Q10277981
Endemic molluscs of South Africa
abakcheutos
Gastropods described in 1992